NAVI
 Copland OS
 Lain & her dad
Be OS
 Hotsauce
 Tachibana Technical Labs


The Lain Relationship
Im creating this on my train ride into Boston. The trains heat is not working, and im cold, but for the first time I'm glad that my Apple Powerbook gets extremely hot, so at least my hands are warm.  ^_^
NAVI

Lain is probably the best known anime that has a relationship with Macs.  Most of everything somehow looks like it came from Macs. That makes sense, since most animators use Macs.  So usually when they need a computer in the series, they turn to mac for their inspiration.   The main one is Lains first computer, a NAVI. 
20th anniversary MacLains first NAVI

The picture on the left is Apple's 20th anniversary apple computer, other than the color, they look the same.  That mac cost as much as $10,000. which is a lot and that is probably why it didn't sell very well.  The Mac featured a powerful, state of the art PowerPC running at a wopping 250Mhz and 128MB max memory.  The picture on the right is Lain's original NAVI, which was actually old in the series, lain only uses it for email at the time, I wonder where it was put when the father gave her the new and great NAVI.

The Specs of the Twentieth Anniversary Mac

CPU: 603e 250 MHZ
Memory: 32MB
Expandable: 128MB
Drives: 2G HD, Front-loading CD
Slots: 1 PCI

Features:




Copland OS Enterprise

The other big part of this relationship is the OS (Operating System) that everyone uses in their NAVIs.  The OS is called Copland OS.  Apple was to release a super special OS, codenamed "Copland" OS.  I do not know if they ever released any screenshots of it, but Apple never released the OS, they said that their were too many buggs and it was too difficult to fix properly.  One of the main reasons probably was the limitations of the current technology, which disappointed me and so many other mac fans.   Instead Apple released boaring OS 8.6 which was very similar to OS 8.   It would have been great if Apple released it, and it looked like Lain's OS, then PCs would no longer exist, oh well.



Lain's dad is a big computer geek, he has about 7 computers in some room, he networks them together, uses his imagination to make the computers great.  In the NAVI world, computers are not like PCs, they can be modofied so much, that the limitation are only of the users imagination.  If you saw Lains setup, you will understand what I'm talking about.



This is what I'm talking about, I really wonder who she was able to get all of the parts for her really amazing system, I wish I could get them ^_^.  Her entire system has does not have a relationship with Apple other than the OS.  At least, that the public knows about, but who knows,  maybe Apple has another secret.  One thing is for sure, they will now be able to release their powerful OS.  Some of the rumors that were going to be in the OS are in MAC OS X.  With the new 64bit processor, their is nothing stopping Apple from releasing a really demanding OS.



In the NAVI world, the wired is everywhere, even 6 year olds have their own handheld computer, that is in the shape of a gun (so they look cool and everything).  This has nothing to do with Apple, at least that I know of, I just thought it was mentionable.



to Be continued

At the end of each episode, you see the "to Be continued" line.  You may notice that the Be is blue and red.  They are the same colors as the logo for Be Inc.   Be Inc. was founded by Jean-Louis Gassee in 1990, just after the loss of his position at Apple.  Be OS was ment for really graphic intensive purposes.  Apple never bought Be OS and in 2001 was bought by Palm.



Apple Hotsauce

In Layer 07 Society, There is this weird looking guy walking around with a display, and lots of computer stuff, everyone is staring at him.  He is removing the barrier between the real and the wired world, and trying to impress Lain.



There is no question, he is using Apple's Hotsauce.  If nothing else proved that their is a relationship between Lain and Apple, this does, On the right image there is a green bubble that clearly says "MacUser".   Hotsauce is a very nice and easy to use way for browsing the web, but sadly never became popular.  I made my own Hotsauce section to my site, you will need the plug-in, which is also on my site, It will run on windows but you need to use Netscape, I'm told that it does run on Internet explorer, you will still need to find the plugins folder for it, where ever it is.
Tachiabana Technical Labs

Tachibana Technical Labs is the company that creates all of the NAVIs.  What realtes this to Apple computer is a tiny little detail that nicely connects them.  In Japan Tachibana is a fruit, an orange.